The invention relates to a vehicle body member with an opening surrounded by a frame such as sun roofs of motor vehicles. A roof of this kind is known for example from German Pat. No. 2016492. In this known roof, displacement of the sliding shoes and consequently the raising and lowering movement of the rear edge of the cover from the closed position of the cover is effected by means of a crank, said crank being disposed in the fixed part of the roof in the vicinity of the forward edge of the roof opening.
These known sliding roofs are relatively complicated and correspondingly expensive due to the fact that the crank mechanism and the cable guides must be installed as separate units on the fixed roof, the fact that the cable guides must pass through a wall of the rain gutter surrounding the roof opening at some point and this point must be sealed, and the fact that the cable must have a length which corresponds to the entire displacement path of the cover and the cable guide tubes must be sufficiently long to be able to accept the cable both with the cover in the closed position and with the cover completely retracted.
The invention is intended to provide a motor vehicle roof of the type described hereinabove, said roof being distinguished by a significantly simpler design and therefore capable of being manufactured much less expensively.
This goal is achieved according to a preferred embodiment, by displaceably mounting the ends of the above-noted guide tubes in or on rear sliding shoes and arranging said ends approximately parallel to guide tracks for the shoes and disposed laterally in the frame.
Additionally, by mounting the actuating device on the cover, the amount of assembly work to be performed on the vehicle roof to mount the guide tracks for the cover is reduced. All of the components for guiding the cover and for raising and lowering the rear edge of the cover can be prefabricated together with the guide tracks so that after the guide tracks have been mounted on the vehicle roof, in most instances it is only necessary to simply bolt the cover in place and possibly to adjust the height of the cover in order to ensure that the cover is flush with the fixed part of the roof when closed. The fact that the actuating device is displaced together with the cover means that the cables and cable guide tubes can be very short. No sealing problems arise, since the cable guide tubes do not need to pass through any rain gutter walls.
In order to be able to stop the sliding cover in various positions as it is retracted, the guide tracks are provided with latching holes according to another aspect of the invention. Preferably, these holes cooperate with latching hooks mounted swivelably on the sliding shoes, said hooks being displaceable into their latching positions by spring force, as a result of which, by designing the ends of the cables with sufficient play with respect to the sliding shoes, they first bring the latched latching hooks into their unlatched position and then displace the sliding shoes when displaced in at least one direction. Advantageously, the design can be made such that the ends of the cables act directly on the latching hooks.
Preferably, the actuating device is a twist grip, which, when rotated against a spring force in a rotational direction which corresponds to the closing movement direction of the cover, it first displaces the rear sliding shoes to lower the rear edge of the cover, and then releases the lock on the cover, and in the other rotational direction displaces the sliding shoes to raise the rear edge of the cover. The cover is displaced by the cover being pushed forward or backward by a handle mounted at right angles to the displacement direction. When the twist grip is released, it returns under the action of the springs until the cables are retracted and the latching hooks released, said hooks then being able to engage the closest latching holes in the guide tracks. The spring means for retracting the twist grip are preferably disposed directly in the sliding shoes and abut the cables at one end and a point on the sliding shoe at the other.
The twist grip can comprise a shell with a circular circumferential wall and a handle running diametrally. The cover can be locked simply in its closed position by providing the circumferential wall with at least one depression into which a locking element, mounted in a spring-loaded manner on the cover, latches in the closed position.
In order to inform the operator in simple fashion, in which direction he must turn the twist grip in order to release the lock and be able to slide the cover back, the handle, which has a left half and right half on either side of its rotational axis, can be provided on the forward side of one half and on the rear side of the other half with depressions to accept the fingers, when the grip is seized for rotation in the direction in which the rear edge of the cover is lowered for subsequent retraction of the cover. The arrangement is such that the handle is located at right angles to the displacement direction when the cover is in the closed position, and is rotated through 180.degree. in one direction to lower the rear edge of the cover and release the cover lock, and through 360.degree. in the other direction to raise the cover.
To facilitate installation, the ends of the tubes at the actuating side, in the vicinity of a drive pinion for the cable, connected with the twist grip, can be mounted in a mounting plate, located on an inside panel of the cover.
Normally, the cover is covered by a headlining on the side which faces the passenger compartment, said headlining consisting of fabric in known designs and being held in place by its own headlining frame. Aside from the cost which this necessitates, this design has the disadvantage, when the vehicle roof according to the invention is used, that a good seal in the vicinity of the twist grip is difficult to effect and means that the twist grip comes to rest against the headlining, and this in turn means that the twist grip can only be installed after the cover has been installed and the headlining fitted, so that the desired complete prefabrication is not feasible. These disadvantages can be overcome if a rigid headlining is used which has a circular upwardly projecting edge in the vicinity of the twist grip, which edge is located within a circumferential wall of a shell forming part of the twist grip, when assembled as part of the cover. This makes it possible to prefabricate completely the guide and tilting elements of the cover in the manner described hereinabove and, after installing the cover in the vehicle roof, to apply the headlining which then is fastened only in the vicinity of its leading edge to a cross member of the cover, for example, by clips, and held in the vicinity of its rear edge on both sides in known fashion by catches mounted on the cover, said catches holding the headlining in such manner, when the cover is closed, that the cover covers the roof opening in a largely gap-free manner when viewed from the vehicle interior even though the headlining is brought along with the cover when it is raised.
These and further objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more obvious from the following description when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings which show, for purposes of illustration only, a single embodiment in accordance with the present invention.